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Matthew Travis from the
Ares Institute Inc helped me get a press pass for the STS-135 Launch. so I'm crossing my fingers and hoping for no scrub. I'm tweeting as @cmdrtaco from the launch if you are into that sort of thing. I'll have more later, but for now you'll have to make do with a photo I took, as well as a brief video clip I took of Atlantis on the pad at night.

I just heard some sad news on talk radio - the space shuttle transportation system was found dead in its Florida home this morning. There weren't any more details. I'm sure everyone in the Slashdot community will miss it - even if you didn't enjoy its work, there's no denying its contributions to popular culture. Truly an American icon.

I envy you, I've unfortunately never been within 1,000 miles of the cape for a launch. This Christmas break there's a chance I'll be in Florida for a planned Delta I V Heavy launch, if so I'll definitely be taking the family.

I'm in Orlando now, waiting for a friend to catch up so we can relocate over to Titusville for the launch (lost the raffle for a chance to buy KSC tickets... misery). I'm really hoping that it goes off on time though, or gets scrubbed and pushed to one of the next two windows (Sat and Sun). If they push to the third, July 18th iirc, the whole trip was a waste.:(

Left Tampa at 8am on Friday morning, got an epic spot (and took some great pictures with a 500mm lens/tripod from top of rental car) 25 minutes before launch from Port Canaveral cruise ship parking lot. Hope you enjoyed it as much as I did!

Most people lost the raffles. I was really hoping for causeway tickets, as the view from the Visitor's Center and Astronaut HOF seem disappointing, not much better than some of the surrounding areas because you don't see the thing leave the pad except on a low resolution jumbotron.

I had hoped to be there, but I needed to finish a major project in a timely manner before trying again to watch a launch.

Maybe things will settle down so I can go see the launch of the Curiosity rover in November.

I watched STS-131 from the visitors center. It was a night launch, and while I wished I could have had causeway tickets, it was still awesome to watch the sky light up like a sunrise and hear the roar of the engines. We also got to see the ISS pass over us "through the moon" shortly before launch.

The next window is the 16th [spaceflightnow.com] if the Delta 4 launch gets off on time, not that that helps you. I don't know how long you're there, but the Delta launch is scheduled for the 14th at 2:49-3:08 a.m., which would be better than nothing.

I was fortunate enough to attend a launch a couple years ago, I've never seen anything like it. The sound when the rumble from the main engines hits you, even from miles away, is pretty amazing. Even so, I'm still jealous of anyone who gets to go to this one.

One of the things that stuck in my head was while we were driving around KSC we were driving past the Vehicle Assembly Building, historic launch pads, control center, the port where the external tanks come in from the sea, and the visitor area that co

I was fortunate enough to attend a launch a couple years ago, I've never seen anything like it. The sound when the rumble from the main engines hits you, even from miles away, is pretty amazing. Even so, I'm still jealous of anyone who gets to go to this one.

That was the thing that most impressed me, too - we were sitting on our car about ten miles away. It was a predawn launch, and at first you just saw the flames going up. About 30 seconds later, when it was already quite high up, the sound hit & the car was shaking. It ranks up with the aurora borealis for awesome (literally) things I've seen.

It was neat seeing it in the dark, because about 20 minutes before launch you could see the space station come by, and you realized that pretty soon the shuttle was

The green eye of jealousy is rearing it's ugly head. I wonder how many people who feel this way are the ones who always complain about things, but never ever do anything.

The shuttle launch is something that is likely never going to happen again, and those who have not had the opportunity should be jealous. I have seen it from four miles out. It is a vision to behold. I have also been working in mission control during a two flights and been in the integration areas at KSC. I know how lucky I am, and am always saddened by those who choose jealousy over action. To many people think they have seen or done something because they have been to Disneyland, or a major concert, or maybe a major sporting event. But the something like the Shuttle matters beyond the technology of a entertainment event or who wins or loses an event. The shuttle represents our human capability to coordinate thousands of people and mechanical parts into a functioning whole that breaks us from the limits of the earth.

So rather than being jealous, go out and do something useful. Quite wasting your time trying to be the Big Man on slashdot, compensating for the lack of Real Innovation. Do Something.

The shuttle launch is something that is likely never going to happen again, and those who have not had the opportunity should be jealous.

All of the shit that happens around us is unique and is never going to happen again. IOW: not much of an argument. It's all a matter of what one values in life. It's important to you: fine. Important to my Dad, who saw a Shuttle launch in the 80s. Not all that important to me -- certainly less important than, say, working on my house.

As far as I'm concerned, recent CPUs and GPUs are no less of a technological achievment than, say, a Shuttle launch. They are all immensely complex technical systems, even if the Shuttle is "just" a spaceplane strapped to a rocket, and, say Penryn is "just" a CPU on a piece of silicon wafer. Whether the parts are mechanical or not doesn't matter much, IMHO. Things fail spectacularly in the silicon world, too.

As far as I'm concerned, recent CPUs and GPUs are no less of a technological achievment than, say, a Shuttle launch.

Not exactly the same kind of risk involved or the same type of experience -- one is a spectacle and the other is not:

To watch a launch of a vehicle breaking the bonds of earth's gravity to venture out into an inhospitable environment where those on board risk their lives is on a somewhat different scale than, say, pushing the power button on my desktop.

As far as I'm concerned, recent CPUs and GPUs are no less of a technological achievment than, say, a Shuttle launch.

Not exactly the same kind of risk involved or the same type of experience -- one is a spectacle and the other is not:

To watch a launch of a vehicle breaking the bonds of earth's gravity to venture out into an inhospitable environment where those on board risk their lives is on a somewhat different scale than, say, pushing the power button on my desktop.

You fuck up a run of a few million CPUs like Penryn, you're out of a billion bucks. That's in the same ballpark as losing a Shuttle. Certainly way more than monetary value of any human life that's lost in a Shuttle accident.

As far as inhospitable environments go: you should visit a sub-50nm fab once, and see the whole manufacturing process start to finish. Kinda makes Shuttle look dumb -- IMHO.

I don't get the whole romanticization of risk and frontier. Watching, say, an electron force microscope work gives

You seem really focused on monetary value. I was trying to show you there are things beyond that. The fact that you can't see that risking/losing human lives puts space exploration in a different ballpark than manufacturing processors I find quite sad -- and of course there's that whole "leaving the frikkin' planet thing". *shrug*

BTW, I'm not discounting the amazing achievements in computing -- I just find it to be in a different category than leaving the planet. And of course, space exploration relie

Not to be rude against the shuttle or anything, but if I wanted to talk tech revolution I feel the computer I'm sitting at now and the Internet it's connected to are the absurdly biggest revolutions of the last 25 years or so (yes I know the PC and arpanet itself is older). We're talking going from 64kB to 16GB of RAM, 1 Mhz to 3 GHz processors, tapes with ~200 kB of storage to 2 TB hard disks, it's absurdly many orders of magnitude. Not to mention the Internet going from a university thing to something 99%

It's a shame you don't elaborate on the specifics of your lament, some of which I might guess, but it's hard to comment on assumptions of your reasoning.

The original intention was far more, they thought they could get 100 out of each one and fly a lot more often. That didn't work though, for several different reasons. It would have been nice to have a more orderly transition to something else. I'm disappointed that Constellation never flew outside of the test of Ares I-X. I suppose that wasn't going to

The original intention was far more, they thought they could get 100 out of each one and fly a lot more often. That didn't work though, for several different reasons. It would have been nice to have a more orderly transition to something else.

And this might be the core reason NASA is having trouble being approved for funding for a new program. The shuttle failed in a lot of areas where it shouldn't have.

It was not practical in the sense of re-usability requiring massive overhauls and inspections after each use which made the turn around time for another launch incredibly long. This ballooned the budget of NASA and honestly probably the main reason why its not receiving the proper funding because the program is bloated and not efficient.

This put a smile on my face... I wanted to go but never got the time + money to do it. CmdrTaco being there and posting updates about it will have to do. Now, we all have a pair of eyes on the ground, our Nerd in Cape Canaveral.

Merely ideas before their time. Both nice in theory but ugly reality made them too ineffective for their roles.

Fortunately, we (as in civilization) have taken our lessons learned quite well. The Concorde was too inefficient relative to high subsonic aircraft (i.e. high fuel costs), and had very limited routes due to restrictions on supersonic land overflights. There is a lot of research going on now to reduce sonic booms to the point of elimination, as well as improving efficiency. The next supersonic commercial aircraft, whenever it is made, will be cost competitive and capable of flying more routes.

The shuttle's failings are well documented, but the next generation of manned vehicles demonstrate the lessons learned quite well. All have the passenger cabin on top, separate crew and cargo functionality, seek simplicity and are truly reusable rather than merely refurbish-able. Additionally, by seeking multiple independent vendors we are avoiding the single string failures we encountered after Columbia, Challenger, and the current retirement plan.

We didn't get things right the first time out on either of these, but thats not necessarily a bad thing -- mistakes are often the best way to learn.

Well said. It's worth noting that in terms of capability, the shuttle was a huge success. It's just that you had to take all of that capability on every flight, whether you needed it or not, so the economics didn't work. The next generation is quite promising for solving that, and with out losing much capability.

If we manage to get:- One of: Crewed Dragon, Dreamchaser, CST-100, or New Shepherd- ISS and Bigelow stations- Either SLS or Falcon Heavy

Lost in Space [imdb.com]: Doctor Zachary Smith, an agent for an enemy government, is sent to sabotage the mission. He is successful in reprogramming the ship's robot, but in the process becomes trapped on the ship, and because of his excess weight, the ship and all on board become hopelessly lost and it now becomes a fight for survival as the crew tries to find their way back home.

If you're going to be in the press observation bunker bring a coat. Before the launch they chill that room to something like 55F. Almost immediately after launch the temp jumps into the 90's from the energy released by the rocket.

If you're going to be in the press observation bunker bring a coat. Before the launch they chill that room to something like 55F. Almost immediately after launch the temp jumps into the 90's from the energy released by the rocket.

Are you serious, or did you make that up (or are you passing along a story someone else made up)? As far as I know, the closest you can get is the press viewing area, and even that's 3 miles from the launch pad (the regular visitor viewing area is 7 miles from the launch pad). I know there is a shitload of energy released from those rockets, but for it to be enough to raise the temperature by 30+ degrees 3 miles away seems a bit unbelievable.

I worked on the shuttle program at JSC for 7 years and visited KSC last month after a cruise vacation. Unfortunately, I've never seen a launch live and never will.

I left JSC in the mid-90s, but tried to keep my excitement for the space program. I vividly recall getting up to watch the landing of Columbia live. See, I wrote some flight software code that makes the landings much smoother and deals with the nosewheel steering, along with lots of code that we never saw executed during any mission (thankfully!). 2 and 3 engine out stuff. Later, I worked writing software used in all the mission control centers around the world, but mainly at JSC. That job made me feel connected to the crews in a way that developing software in a building across the street from JSC never did. Working "on-site" daily, walking into Building-30 and 30S, was exciting. Running into John Young, Mike Coates or other famous people was an almost daily occurrence. Actually, Mike was my boss for a few years (3 levels above) and heard a few of us arguing about which cycle some bit needed to be flipped to "meet requirements" one day. Doing it right was more costly... I had to change 3 more "modules" to flip that single bit on the "first pass of OPS2" and any software change was expensive. Think "multi-threaded" programs, but in real-time software. Whether that bit was flipped then or half a second later after the computers were non-responsive for 45 seconds when going into On-Orbit OPS seriously did not matter. Still, the requirements won over being efficient (where it didn't matter at all) - I think this was 1 issue with the entire shuttle program. Changes were pretty costly.

Anyway, the morning that Columbia broke up in 2003, was very traumatic for me. I'd sat in the FCR and worked with the flight controllers years ago and was disconnected by 4 states and 3 private sector jobs. Those first 10 minutes when the shuttle didn't show up on TV after re-entry and there simply wasn't any data... well, I knew it had broken up and everyone on-board was dead. The first indication of issues were temperatures in the landing gear - I'd written code around the landing gear sensors. There were probably 1,000s of people who did something related to the landing gear.

Anyway, last month as I stood on KSC doing a normal tour that anyone can, I took photos of Atlantis on the pad and saw much of the tourist parts with some family before they had to head off to the airport for flights to different parts of the country. I stayed another 4 hours at the visitor center alone and did everything I could there. I was a little disappointed that it was sorta like a theme park now, it had lost the grimy NASA feeling that I recall walking around behind the scenes at JSC in the different laboratories. Engineers don't usually spend much time on aesthetics. Knowing the shuttle program was ending AND didn't have a follow on project saddened me almost as much as when my father died. As I drove off Merritt Island into the sunset, I actually cried, just a little.

The manned space flight program elevates all humans, just a little. You don't get that from robots. Sure, it costs lots of money, but not nearly as much as not doing it does. The engineer in me says robotics is much cheaper for space exploration. The human in me says without men/women involved, it is just a cartoon, not real.

Mankind **needs** a manned space flight program. I'd hope the USA did it, but other countries have the smarts to accomplish it too. They also have a different culture of risk and a willingness to fail in order to succeed that is lacking in the USA today.

Goodbye shuttle program. I'll be watching Atlantis closely, until she is safely stopped at the end of the runway for the last time.

People want to believe KSC is on Cape Canaveral...don't believe 'em. Take SR3 North and you'll run right to the 39A & B.

Grew up on Merritt Island...everyone was involved in KSC in some way. Went to Merritt Island High, eventually worked at KSC for a while (left in '97').

I'm flying into Orlando tonight....so if it's not scrubbed, I won't see this launch. This program shutdown is going to hit MI hard. It'll come back, just like it did after Apollo ended...but things are going to get tight over th

As a young engineer I want to thank you (anonymous as you may be) for the work you did in the space industry. If it weren't for you and your coworkers my generation of space enthusiasts wouldn't have the pages and pages of source material, research documentation, and local engineering wisdom to learn from. Folks like you helped fuel the space industry for the last 30 years, and without folks like you, I wouldn't have an industry to work in right now.

I'm just leaving myself to head out to Titusville for the launch. Looking forward to capturing as many pics and videos as I can of the events. Got my handy talky all charged to listen to the rebroadcast on 2 meter.

How do we know you are really there? With tech you could easily fake pictures. They could be from anyone.Soooo... Take a pic of you standing in front of the countdown clock with today's newspaper.

Just Joking. Have fun CmdrTaco. I'm rather jealous of you, especially as it is the last one.I only got close to flying down there once with a friend. But I'm glad it didn't work out, because it was a cold January day and we lost 7 people that day.